French Broad River Festival

I felt goo up th e climb (if you can). The small guy passed me, which gave me someone to pace off of to the top. It worried me a little, since I didn't know the course or the rider. I kept him within 15 seconds of me, and when we hit the gravel road, I chipped of second after second. We hit the first downhill and even though I almost completely blew the first turn, I caught the guy in about 1 minute. I got around him and hit the gas for the first of 3 laps on the singletrack/doubletrack loop. The top single speed guy caught me at the end of the first lap, so we rode together and talked, keeping a descent steady pace. He got around the gate a little faster than I did, so I stayed a few seconds behind him on lap 2. He stopped after lap 2 at the tent ( Iguess he had SS rapped up) so I chilled on lap 3, to save gas for an attack if I needed it and some gas for Sun(which I ended up bailing on because of the rain), plus the loop was getting a little soft because of the rain. He decided to do a 3rd lap also, so he caught me towards the end of the lap. we rode together again, and when we got to the gate he attacked. Since I felt like I had 1st overall wrapped up, I decided that maybe I should finish first overall. I hit the gas on the last part of the loop. I couldn't make up any time going down the gravel road because it was all coasting and gears gave me no advantage. When we hit the pavement I sprinted to the top of the hill to get speed for the way down. SS gut had about 800 yards on me at this point. I pedaled as fast as I could to hit 41 mph. I coasted as long as I could until I got down to 33 mph, then I sprinted again. The gap was closing slowly and I kept hoping a car would pass to give me a draft, but it never happened. The road finally started flattening out, and I pulled right up on his wheel, we immediately turned into the campgound and had to dodge people a 4 wheeler and some cars, but I shifted up and blew by him to cross first. I then got to see Jess come across as the next racer to take the tops spots in the Hardcore race for Velosports. Next year we will know to stay so we can get on stage if we repeat.